Office 365 alternatives

Microsoft Office 365 is commercial software plus services offering a set of products from Microsoft. Office 365 includes the Microsoft Office suite of desktop applications and hosted versions of Microsoft's Server products (including Exchange Server, SharePoint Server, and Lync Server), delivered and accessed over the Internet, in effect, the next version of Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS).

Microsoft rolled out a new tool for business owners using Office 365 and Outlook called Outlook Customer Manager, a lightweight CRM for companies that need to track their customer interactions and history, but aren’t yet ready for a more robust platform like Dynamics 365. The new tool lets businesses track tasks and deals in progress directly in Outlook, and will pop-up reminders aimed at helping them stay on top of their customer relationships. Once enabled, Outlook Customer Manager will automatically organize customer information, including emails, meetings, calls, notes, files, tasks, deals and deadlines. This information – which is collected from email, calendar and call log data – is presented in a timeline format next to the inbox. Users can associate certain tasks with a contact, company or deal, so they can interact with their customers in a more timely fashion. It’s also able to present lists of deals by stage, close dates, priority and amount.

2016Office 365 now lets you invite guests to groups

From now Office 365 users will be able to include outside parties in their project, as Microsoft is rolling out guest access in Outlook on the web. Once added, guests receive a welcome email, are granted access to group files in SharePoint Online, begin receiving email messages and calendar invites sent to the group, and can access the group in Office on the web and the Outlook Groups mobile application. They also have automatic access to cloud-based file attachments. All guests have to sign into Microsoft to get Office 365 access, but they can be part of any email domain, even if it’s not part of a business.

2016Office 365 hets online booking app

Microsoft extanded its Office 365 suite with a new service called Bookings, which will allow customers to schedule appointments with a business using online software. In addition to connecting businesses and customers without the need for a phone call, Bookings will also manage other aspects to appointment management, including sending out confirmations and reminders, handling re-scheduling and cancellations, updating the business staff’s calendar, and more. Businesses are provided with a unique web page that works on both desktop and mobile where customers can select their dates and times based on current availability. Here, they’ll enter in their contact information and book the appointment. The system then automates the rest of the process surrounding appointment management.

2016Office 365 groups gets connectors

Microsoft released Office 365 Connectors that enable teams who have been pulled together in an Office 365 Group to share third-party services using a single sign-in or account. Office 365 Connectors can surface all the information that a team may need from services like Twitter, LinkedIn or Trello, and makes it available through the shared Groups inbox. By providing an integrated experience that link together email conversations, file storage, and calendar event management, Groups create an integrated experience for teams to focus on group activity.

2015Microsoft released Office 2016

Microsoft is releasing Office 2016, offering refreshed versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and other applications. The look and feel of the programs will be familiar to anyone who has used the 2013 edition of Microsoft’s productivity software. Much of what’s new with the 2016 edition is better integrated collaboration tools. A new co-authoring feature allows multiple users to edit the same document in real time, long a feature of Office’s Web-based cousins and apps built by Google and other Microsoft competitors. Also arriving is chat service Skype, which will be embedded within Office apps to let users send instant messages, share images of their work, or video chat from within a document. Other new features include a search tool to locate specific functions within Office, and a research tool that pulls data from the Internet into documents. Microsoft is pushing to sell the software suite through Office 365, the company’s subscription program, instead of the traditional model of a one-time purchase that gives the user rights to the software in perpetuity.